If children play with note counting machines…

The residence and offices of Karnataka BJP leader K.S. Eshwarappa were raided by the Lok Ayukta recently, acting on a complaint of “assets disproporation to the known sources of income”. Besides obnoxious amounts of gold and silver that is the new-normal, among the items seized was a currency note counting machine which he claimed was being used as a “toy” by children in the house.

A currency machine now appears to be a badge of honour amongst the corrupt across India.

Madhu Koda, the former chief minister from Jharkhand who became notorious for his money-laundering scam, was discovered to be a millionaire with business interests in far-flung countries like Liberia and Laos. In the stash discovered in Koda’s home were five currency counting machines.

Such machines were reportedly found in the home of Ashok Jadeja, Ahmedabad-based conman and fake guru who defrauded thousands in a money-multiplier scheme. A Madhya Pradesh doctor couple in government service was found with huge amounts of unaccounted cash and a currency counting machine a few months ago.

Possessing a currency counting machine is not illegal in India. But the recent discoveries suggest that illegal cash transactions are so massive that physical counting is impractical and machines are being brought in. These days corruption cases anyway involve tens of crores of rupees, if not hundreds.

It is becoming routine for corrupt politicians and bureaucrats to have a currency counting machine besides documents, cash and jewelry, said Justice Santosh Hegde, former Karnataka Lokayukta and an anti-corruption crusader.

“Bribes are mostly received in cash and this indicates the volume of unaccounted money sloshing about in the financial system,” said Justice Hegde.

29 Responses to “If children play with note counting machines…”

With Apologies to Ashis Nandy – “Currency machines are a great equalizer” “Lingayat’s are the most corrupt community” errr.. I meant it appears like “Lingayat’s are most corrupt, but in reality others hide their corruption well”. :)

Well seriously – I suppose who ever is in power at the time appears to be most corrupt, and in that sense corruption is a great equalizer – they all do it when in power and get turns to rip off the state and exchequer. You vote out one crook with another. A happy merry go round for them.

On the other hand, it might be interesting to try to assign a corruption ‘quotient’ to each caste and see who comes out on top and bottom. i.e. to see if there is a correlation between caste and degrees of corruption.

It might be a good starting point to start defining the word ‘corruption’, which we love to throw around now-a-days. Then we may get a frame of reference for the various silver bullets newspapers and blogger propose to counter it.

Though such a study could only come from a blog like Churumuri since most newspaper/TV channels wont have the guts to discuss caste freely.

***

harkol,

Actually it might be an interesting exercise. Could you help define, what ‘corruption’ means. A practical definition, like a list of things which involve being corrupt.

On the caste corruption quotient, let me go out on a limb and propose the starting point for a random list, in order of corruption, least to most:
1. Brahmins
2. Christians
3…
Of course this list is meaningless and for fun, who knows some scholar can pick it up and actually quantify it. The data should be available to continue…

With Apologies to Ashis Nandy – “Currency machines are a great equalizer” “Brahmins are the most corrupt community” errr.. I meant it appears like “Brahmins are most corrupt…most manipulative and have raped Bharat Mata for hundreds of years ……

In due course of time, all the castes in India will be classified as backward castes. So no need to bother with caste corruption indices.

In post-independence India, the list of backward castes has only kept on increasing (Lingayats also made an attempt to include themselves as BC ). There has not been a single deletion of a caste from the BC list. So much for “progress” post-independence !!

I wish that SACHITRA BANNADA (to mean colourful) MAGGI PUSTAKA of 1950s is reprinted and given to all our so-called leaders of Karnataka (irrespective of party) since they have squeezed the commoners dry. Yes, despite being a Delhiite since 1989, I am hurt at the manner in which these guys are looting the gullible folks. I wish to go back to my good old Bangalore that at one time was referred as Garden City and Pensoners’ Paradise which indeed was a paradsie during the 50s and 60s in our quiet Malleswaram, Kumara Park, Shesahdripuram, Basvangudi and other neighbourhoods like Cox Town/ in east or Shanti Nagar in KH Road areas.
The likes of Deve Gowda, Yddies and Reddies have literally spoilt the good old culture of my birth and home place.

@Goldstar, I didnt mean who is termed as backward caste to grab a bigger share of the dole.

I guess my questions are:
1. What is this corruption that the middle class is railing against? Let’s define it before making bigger fools of ourselves..
2. What Ashish Nandy said, or at least the media version, does it have any basis in fact? Are some castes more corrupt than others? If so, any reasons why?
3. Are we Indians capable of less corrupt, if we had an alternative system? If so what system?

It is a futile excercise to rank castes in a corruption index. Every caste in a system like India will be corrupt, the question is just of opportunity. Without systemic checks & balance and fear of law, it is free for all.

Financial corruption is only one aspect of it. But, the corruption runs way deeper.

Mis-using Section 144, to ensure a movie is not viewed, inspite it being passed by censors – is corruption of the law & order system to settle personal/political scores.

We indulge in corruption, when we take an uncle’s help to get a driver’s license or get a house plan sanction. Even if we paid no bribe, it is still corruption. Breaking of a prescribed system.

Corruption is everywhere. It can be seen when you stop at a traffic light, where people jump traffic lights. It happens in all countries and is done by almost every class of people. The scale, motivation and results are different.

What I rant about is the corruption in massive scale, which has potential to undermine the foundations of the nation as a whole.

@ Suresh Panje, The story of all the Indian cities is more or less same in all the states. All these cities were beautiful, less inhabited by people and vehicles, everything was rosy, quiet, peaceful. But with the increase in population and “progress”, other things also increase – vehicle population, crime rate, more number of crooks, more number of bad politicians, more and more desire to make fast money, more corruption, worsening of all kinds of situations. It is not limited to Bangalore. After all, people are same everywhere. By the way, when I landed in Bangalore in 1998, huge writings on the walls were: “Garden City or Garbage City?”, “Udyana Nagariyo, Adhvana nagario?”.! Comments like ‘those were the days, when this place was so nice’ is heard from my friends located in several cities. This is the price people have to pay for the “development “.

4thaugust1932: And your point is that Brahmins should form their own separate nation?

Brahmins is not one caste, there are many castes within brahmins. Besides, they are just one portion of upper caste.

So, Would you extend your argument to all other castes and communities as well? If not – why not?

Wouldn’t it be great to have over 200 nations within what is now India? We can have a UN of our own!! In fact we’ll be back to pre-british India with many small nations ripe for being overrun by foreign forces. ;(

harkol, 4thaugust’s suggestion makes good sense if you want any solution what you defined as corruption.

BTW I did not understand your definition: ” subversion of a defined system”. What is this defined system? If paying bribe is the system, then where does your definition go? What is this corruption problem you guys are ranting against?

Ideally a nation shouldn’t be too small, or completely homogeneous as it’ll be very weak to defend itself. If we think it can be, then such idea will logically lead to each man being a separate nation because no two people think alike in all respects.

4thaugust’s suggestion makes sense? Here is another one that’ll make ‘sense’ – Let us bomb all human beings out of this world – then there won’t be any corruption!

If ‘paying bribe’ is ‘the defined system’ then it won’t be corruption. A system in modern civilization is defined by law (it used to be religion in older times). And the law of the land doesn’t permit a bribe. If the law did permit, a payment for favor received, then it’d be a ‘fee’ (not a bribe) and such transaction won’t be corruption.

@harkol,
“A system in modern civilization is defined by law (it used to be religion in older times). And the law of the land doesn’t permit a bribe. If the law did permit, a payment for favor received, then it’d be a ‘fee’ (not a bribe) and such transaction won’t be corruption.”

Bribe or Fee both are same if we defined them in plain simple “Process or functional” language. of-course “intention” which drives those transaction will dissect the above definition.

Sir please define what is “Law”. what is the methodology used to design this “Law””. Also who frames this?
. Is “The Law” defined by Factors of “Nationalism”/ Globalisation (distant and wide space!, absolute time!) sitting in distant Delhi/Washington? or it in less distant Bangalore(Medium space, lesser time)? or is it in Panchayat/Municipality level(Small space,small time? or at local factors between 2 person or single individual level (immediate spacetime)?

few more questions.
1. Whether the law framed in different levels have any synchronization ?
2. Does different levels have any priorities or no priorities? if yes, is it top level down or bottom level up?
3.. Whether the law framed by different levels must be in harmonium with nature?
4.. General mundane belief of corruption is “law” framed between two persons at bottom level which deviates more from the “law” framed at his top level? is it only correct?
4. If it is yes what about the law framed at top level with dubious “intentions”. check out this and who will bell the cat here?http://blogs.timesofindia.indiatimes.com/the-real-truth/entry/lobbying-is-not-the-same-as-corruption

please come out with your answer. now i am working on similar kind of problem faced by scientist in the evolution of Modern Physics in early 19th century. Hope this will throw more light on our Political science. More later..

Thanks for making it clear that your identifier is not only a noun, it is also an adjective. But, I am not in the habbit of filling in the ‘blanks’. It is too much of a task, and trying to do so ‘blanks’ me out as well.

@harkol
Speaking of how to frame laws here:
According to Newton’s 1st law of motion: when no net force acting on inertial frame of reference: – If it is at rest continues to be in rest or if moves with constant velocity continues to be moving straight with same velocity.

The extension of this law:-. A human mind when there is no clinging or force of desire acting on it, it continue to be in rest if it was at rest, or Continuous to be indulge in plain straight activity, if it was doing the same. No Force, no Clinging, No Desire, no Gravity!!!

Coming to Newton’s law of gravitational force, he predicted absolute space, absolute time. This force is product of 2 or more distant masses obeying inverse square law principle. But he completely failed to predict the cause of this attraction, the gravity! The desire!!

No doubt, Newton’s gravitation law will collapse at far less than speed of light. It failed to encounter the mystery of electro-magnetism and predicts the value of bending of light near massive bodies incorrectly.

The principal of Globalization/Nationalism assumes the same condition of what Newton’s gravitation law does: – greater space, absolute time! Any “Law” framed at this level has limited practical application as human consciousness (including those who frames that law) cannot feel that condition!

Coming to Einstein theory of relativity,
“Physics is simple only when it is measure locally”-Einstein.
Einsteins local inertial frames exist are simple. All physics take place by “local action” which contrast with Newtons action at distance! At local level the worldline the satellite follows is already straight as any worldline can be.

Which is more better then the free falling elevator chamber to experiment gravity!
I was stumbled by kind of mindset that man had. He was not only interested in cracking the mystery of gravity but also finding ways to eliminate it! – The devil called gravity! The desire! some people even calling him A Modern Buddha.

His special relativity assumes of tiny “free float chamber” (tiny enough to eliminate effect of length contraction) what he called “local Lorenz frame” falling towards the earth. Does the “free fall” feel gravity? No says the accelerometer tied to the neck of falling frame! It shows zero acceleration! Free fall means weightlessness i.e. No “g”. “Free fall” has zero force acting on it, and is similar to Newton’s 1st law of motion of inertial frame (see above).

This tiny local Lorenz frame assumes his local space-time has flat (similar to ordinary man assuming his geodesics as flat!) off-course earth is flat! (Measured only locally) and no nationalist/global elite kinds who preach roundness of earth to ignorant villagers can even dare to sleep in curvilinear bed ?- :)

Then still what is the mystery behind gravity (desire) here. Don’t look at distant earth(or america!) instead look at the nearby neighboring “free float chamber” which also assumes flat space-time (locally) and falls freely towards the earth. Calculate the relative velocity between the two frames. This tells us there is an angular deviation (normally hyperbolic) between them. This deviation is what called “Space-time curvature” (this is manifested as gravity!). The causes of curvature is mass (earth) warping on space-time matrix.
There is “n” number of “free float frame” required to arrive at General relativity. “All physical laws are same for “all local Lorenz frame”.

Collision and disintegration of any two or more Lorenz local frames follows “Laws conservation of energy and momentum”. It solves electromagnetism mystery and it is applicable for the particle of speed comparable to that of light as oppose to that of “Newton’s law of gravity”.

Now coming back to “framing laws”, why Einstein took “local tiny flat space-time reference frame” model and there by remove effects of gravity there. Does this concept look similar to Gandian Swaraj model? The removal of gravity at local level looks like removal of unwanted clinging/desire at individual level and it core concept of Buddhist philosophy!

@harkol
What I mean to say: – Present world: – “effort variable” is largely “globalization/nationalization principle” which is dominant in politics/business domain and “flow variable mapped in scientific domain” is largely “localization principle” in the form core scientific discoveries (“General relativity” is one such example).

Pre-historic: – “effort variable” is largely “localization principle” which was more dominant in politics/business domain and “flow variable mapped in scientific domain” is largely “distant action principle” in the form core scientific discoveries (“Newton’s gravitation theory” is one such example).Note: globalization/nationalization = distant action
Effort and flow variable have swapped here!
One kind of gain = another kind of loss
Do we undoing some of the “mapping of scientific to politics/business attributes” in present politics/ business domain what Newton could not crack in his time? Think!!

****
correction
Are we undoing some of the “mapping of attributes from science to politics/business” in present politics/ business domain what Newton could not crack in his time by his “distant action” thought( like analysis of high speed particles), but later Einstein solved the same puzzle with his “Principle of locality” ?. Think Sir!!!!